CROP: BRASSICAS timing

FIRST PLANTING of BRASSICAS

6th Feb - planted BRASSICAS - Serenity CAULIFLOWR and Monty BROCCOLI (and one CAULI Snowball)

28th Feb -  Serenity CAULIFLOWR and Monty BROCCOLI have sprouted

14th March - planted out - mature seedlings

29th April 
- driveway bed are doing well - large leaves, plenty of feeding
- backyard APPLE-CREPE and CREPE-APRICOT aren't doing so well.

SECOND PLANTING OF BRASSICAS

9th April - planted  CAULIFLOWER: Macerata Green (HVS), CAULIFLOWER: snowball early (HVS), CABBAGE: Early Jersey (HVS), BROCCOLI: Aurora F1 (AV), CHINESE CABBAGE: Matilda F1 Early (AV) - only the F1s have survived

8th May - planted out BROCCOLI Aurora F1 in one of the front beds, interplanted with BEETROOT
- spring onions, Garlic (oriental red), 
- a box of GARLIC (spanish purple stripe)

9th May - planted out BROCCOLI Aurora F1 in the other front bed, interplanted with BEETROOT, CHINESE CABBAGE, SPRING ONIONS, GARLIC (Master jack) and one CAULIFLOWER Macerata Green that survived

Dear Diary: 8th May 2025 - winter is definitely coming

OBSERVATIONS:

Getting colder, down to early 20s. More damp weather,

CHOOKS:

Hamyuu is doing okay, she and Kerry both get an extra 'shot' of nutritional liquid. Kerry is no longer laying soft-shells, but she's still tiny.

COMPOST:

Slowly sieving compost. There's a bunch of tree roots in the compost and I don't know where they're coming from. I also don't know how to keep them out in future.Perhaps use the corflutes on the base in future?

PREPARING:

Chook tractor is on the PLUM-STONE bed, with a lot of autumn trimmings in it, and some shredded wood. I need to add more chook manures, and basically turn the space into a giant compost pile, if possible.

SEEDING:

Heirloom seedlings, another attempt now that the weather is better?

PLANTING OUT:

Got all the BEETROOT planted out (see bit on BRASSICA plantings), all the (bought) SPRING ONION, some of the GARLIC, and most of one punnet of BROCCOLI.(Aurora F1)

Still have another punnet of BROCCOLI (Aurora F1)

HARVEST:

FEEDING/SPRAYING:

Sprayed the ROSE BUSH and the DUAL STONE with some lime sulphur. Need to read up on what trees can take it – might need to give the APPLES a go? Probably the DONUT PEACH. I can't remember about the APRICOT.

PRUNING:

I probably need to do some more careful trimming on the trees.

THOUGHTS:

re: using tractor to make compost
why not make the compost in the tractor? That is, let the chooks in to start with, then dump the manures, the trimmings, the clippings, the wood, the paper the everything in there and let it sit for a while, then allow the chooks to scratch it all up. I've been relying on the chooks to do more work than they're used to doing.

TREELINES

along front of house, facing west

GRAPE, KUMQUAT, PASSIONFRUIT, HOPS
also ROSELLA and maybe COFFEE bush

along chicken yard, facing north

LYCHEE, APRICOT

under jacaranda

WHITE SAPOTE, BLACK SAPOTE, ICE CREAM BEAN

dear diary: 12th October

WEATHER & OBSERVATIONS:

After an exceedingly dry winter, we've had a few weeks of wet warmth and everything is growing, shooting, seeding, sprouting.

I planted a bunch of clover cover, and it seems to be actually sprouting where I planted it, once I covered it with a bit of pea straw and

I no longer have the time to dedicate to the garden in the volumes that I once did, now that I'm not working from home anymore. So A lot of stuff that needs to be done is going to be done on weekends only, although some watering will take place once I get home. Also have to learn to be careful about overdoing it. I accidentally did four hours in the garden today because I got involved in doing things and lost track of time!

Driveway corn is doing well, one died – got dug up by the chooks – but the others are growing well apace. I feel like they need more feeding, so I'll probably look at giving them a bit more chook poop direct.

Note: PATH VEGEPOD has the Musquee de Provence PUMPKIN.

CHOOKS:

Six chooks-a-laying means a lot of eggs. A lot of a lot of eggs. And even once we use them up, they're still laying! We've given eggs away to the neighbours all around, and I guess my church friends are up next.

Since the chooks have denuded all the spaces available to them, and only one set of neighbours brings their grass clippings over, I've been pulling the seedy grass weeds up and tossing them down for the chooks. They're also getting a fairly regular diet of mustard greens, along with any leafies that have holes in them. For the most part they seem pretty happy with this.

Kerry still seems to be the bottom ranking – at least, she's the one that everyone picks on when they're looking for someone to punish. She's the smallest and the most ragged, but when they hop up on the perches at night, she's usually tucked into the corner – “my corner – MINE!”

Gladys has a 'cough', which is as regular as a hiccup and sounds a bit like a honk. That said, she doesn't seem to be in pain, it's just a noise she makes – autonomic, rather than conscious.

Goong is back to laying, Hamyuu never stopped. Daofu hasn't shown any issues since we discovered the hernia and she's still laying. Carambah is fine but obviously doesn't lay since she got the implant. Siyao is fine, just has a lot of 'white' feathers, like she's gone prematurely grey.

They all seem happy.

COMPOST:

Got moved from centre bay to right bay, but didn't heat up, unfortunately. Very annoying. I made another pile in the centre bay and that one has almost gone to 'active' but not quite. I think it might need more chook poop to properly compost, so maybe next weekend, I might do a bit of adding and turning, and mix up the centre bay with more chook poop and then mix it into the right bay.

PREPARING:

Chook tractor is still on the APPLE-CREPE, chooks have quite thoroughly dug it up and cleaned it out. It might need some compost toppings before it's quite ready, though.

If I can get some woodchipping done sometime this week, then I can put that in the chook tractor. Otherwise it may end up being mostly pea straw to cover things over.

SEEDING/SPROUTING:

Trying to decide what next to plant. I feel like I should do at least a couple of brassicas and attempt a cabbage. Right now it's the peak time for planting.

DAHLIAS underneath the MANGO are sprouting.

Discovered a volunteer cucurbit near the driveway cornfield, which is pretty funny.

PLANTING OUT:

SIDE VEGEPOD
TOMATO – wasp peach, in a trio
CORN – silvermine, about a dozen of them
ZUCCHINI – black beauty
SWEET PEAS – (left to right) Matucana, Original, Beaujolais, Solstice Crimson

TRIANGLE
BEANS – snake beans to grow up wire grille sealing off the chicken frontage
SUNFLOWER – a solitary one that sprouted

LOUNGE BED/CHICKEN FRONTAGE
SWEET PEAS – remainders from planting out the side vegepod
SUNFLOWERS – (might be moonwalker and teddy bear, or else Van Gogh's Landscape and Giant Russian Organic)

PLUM-STONE
TOMATO - marmande
LETTUCE - Australian yellow leaf (one survived)
SPINACH - bloomsdale
BEANS (I think they're bush beans left over from elsewhere)

POTS
Two MELONs – one moon and stars, one unknown from someone in Thornleight – and the PUMPKIN – Galeaux d'Eysines – planted into pots and stuck back into the greenhouse, fed with chook manures
CAPSICUM – planted all into the black six-pod seedling, and feed with chook manure

DRIVEWAY CORN
Planted one more ZuCCHINI and a couple of CUCUMBERS in among them. We'll see how it goes.

HARVEST:

Still AVOCADOs, but the ALPINE STRAWBS are having a good go of it, and the

FEEDING:

Watered some beds with biologics,

NETTING:

I really need to net the donut peach and the cherry, even though the cherry doesn't have much on it this year.

THOUGHTS:

Steph came to visit the other week to get some avocado scions for grafting to one of her own rootstocks, and of course she got a tour. She commented that I had a lot growing, and that it was all doing well. At least, right now it is. Whether it continues to do well? That's another matter.

I do have a lot of things going on this year, and that's pretty deliberate; I'd like to settle into a rhythm of doing better at actually using what's in the garden, and gardening for what I'll use.

eg. Making a quiche out of eggs and the leafy greens from the garden last week. Eating avos. Working out how to turn spaces more productive.

I'd like to get some cabbages/broccoli in for winter. Somewhere with a bit of sun, but otherwise cool. Not sure where this mythical place might be...

dear diary: 20th September - planting out all over the place

With my surgery on the 6th, I was not supposed to be doing any big gardening for a couple of weeks after.

Me, being me, has sneaked in a little bit here and there, as the healing has progressed. So far, no (re)lapses, and some good planting done. Although I should maybe not have done the shovelling to day

Forthwith, the notes I made for my friend who came to help me out on Tuesday!

MANGO: Plant DAHLIAS

• dig trench around the edge
• plant DAHLIAs in trench with handful of worm farm/green wheelbarrow soil
• ETA: Order of Dahlias, clockwise: black heart, Devon Seattle winky Cavalier, Formby Empress, Violet, freckles, Cottage Delight, Betty, Atlantic jewels, briannon, Chloe, Noreen, vintage wine, Dusty Rose.

AVO-SHED: one EGGPLANT, various BUSH BEANS, assorted LETTUCES, KALE, SILVERBEET, ROCKET, BASIL

• stake out squares
• put in structure for beans
• plant Eggplant and Beans with a handful of extra soil (from black box compost or composed chook poo
• ETA:
Rocket, Mixed Lettuce, Basil, mixed Lettuce, and English Spinach (Mediema)

TOMATO GARDEN : TOMATOES (Roma)

• plant out tomatoes in tomato bed, also garlic bed.
• Plant with handful of worm castings/composted chook poo
• set up frame for protection
• watering system

GARLIC BED: eggplant & Capsicum

• one eggplant, one capsicum in each with handful of worm castings + composted chook poo
• bluebird olla?

CORN LAWN:

• move chicken run
• dig holes in soil (post digger?)
• plant corn with a handful of worm castings/composted chook poo

Planning:

• BANANA CIRCLE: one pumpkin - not yet
• VEGEPOD: one watermelon
• Small VEGEPOD: PEANUT, POTATO and PUMPKIN - Galeaux D'Eysines

Still to do:

• consider what to do with the large vegepod. (Ideally, I'd like to make a verge garden out of it, for use by the general public. But I'm a bit iffy about it, given some of the thieves around the here!)
• work out where the watermelon, and Musquee d'Provence PUMPKIN should go. Also, the MELON seedling that someone gave me along with a couple of cherry tomato seedlings.

So far, everything appears to be transplanting well, a little bit of wilting on the tomatoes' part this afternoon because it was quite warm and a bit windy, but I hadn't watered the tomatoes in. Going to need to give them a good soaking for the next couple of days. Supposed to be a couple of very wet days next week, and then some light showers the week after. We could do with a good soaking. Just not 40 days of it.

dear diary: 13th September, post-surgery

Got out of hospital on Sunday, have been taking it easy (where 'easy' is relative to what I usually do; it's hard to stop entirely) but the problem is that this is spring and there's so much to do!

I'm presently negotiating with friends to do a few things around the place while I'm still unable to actually do stuff.

OBSERVATIONS:

AVO-STONE: has been left for a couple of weeks. A TOMATO (unknown) has sprouted, and a couple of BRASSICAS (unknown).

Apricot graft on STONE has produced two apricots, they'll shortly need to be netted.

Flowering SALVIA between DONUT PEACH and CHERRY isn't doing great (not well-watered, didn't dig a hole for it, just set it down.

Don't think any of the grafts are going to make it. The hot-and-dry wind of late August/early September stalled them all, and they're not going to make it.

APRICOT at FRONT FENCE seems to have a couple of tiny apricots.

MANGO at FRONT FENCE is shooting what looks like fruit florets. It looks like the fruit florets come off new wood which grows off old wood.

LYCHEE seems to have died during the dry winds of last week. Roots weren't covered enough, weren't watered enough. Dammit. I think I have / had a LONGAN, but that doesn't seem to be doing so well either.

The PERSIMMON fruits (like the MANGO) on new wood, which sprouts off old wood, as seen in the pic:

CHOOKS:

Goong is STILL BROODY. Argh. Just going on four weeks.

Everyone else is fine, dustbathing in the triangle garden is the pastime of the day. Tunnels set up to channel them carefully across the grass. Trying to grow clover around the tunnel.

Hoping that the next week or two will be damp enough to give them something to grow and dig into the ground...

COMPOST:

Not getting above 30C. I think that's just going to be a slow compost.

Should move the black compost bin from by the fence to...somewhere else. Don't know where. Have to think about that. I want to open it up to the public, but it'll just end up with a shitload of dogshit in plastic bags. Because people are literally crappy.

PREPARING:

PLUM-STONE: Start tossing handfuls of rockdust and other fertilisers in.

AVO-STONE: has been left for a couple of weeks. A TOMATO (unknown) has sprouted, and a couple of BRASSICAS (unknown). Planting out to commence next week.

PLANTING:

Planted a new set of Royal Burgundy BUSH BEANS – direct into AVO-SHED, with plans for planting out.

Have SILVERBEET, ROCKET, LETTUCE, SPINACH, KALE to grow in and around things. Also BASIL and CORIANDER.

SEEDING:

Germination pattern of the beans I planted; some died during the hot-dry wind that we had last week.

PLANTING OUT:

Snake BEANS – next to driveway, near flowers. I keep trying here but it never seems to go well with peas and sweet peas, maybe snake BEANS will?

Snake BEANS – between APPLE ESPALIER to grow upwards

Tiger's Eye BEANS – in old APRICOT (now LYCHEE?) - up the back fence.

AVO-SHED: one EGGPLANT, various BUSH BEANS, assorted LETTUCES, KALE, SILVERBEET, maybe some RADISHES

TOMATOES (Roma) – in 'TOMATO GARDEN' – will ask Kris to do it next week.

HARVEST:

Asparagus! The fourth spear (previous 3 picked and eaten) here:

Still AVOCADOES. One ORANGE left. I harvested some GARLIC stalks for cooking with BROCCOLI, and they were excellently tasty.

FEEDING:

Need to work out a feeding schedule for TOMATOES, EGGPLANTS, CAPSICUMS (including the two still in the CREPE-APRICOT.

THOUGHTS:

I wish I could better tighten the connections from the water tank pump; so when they turned on, they wouldn't leak so much. Connect the watering system to the water tank for the summer, run it once a day before dawn?
Move tractor to APPLE-CREPE? nothing grew well there in the previous cycle, none of the brassicas, barely any of the beetroots, everything's going to seed right now. Maybe the second crop of CORN goes there? CORN generally does pretty well in the backyard, and it's a limited-season crop, so by the time the light fades from there, we're already well into autumn.
Work out where CUCUMBERS, ZUCCHINI, SOYBEAN, TOMATOES, two PUMPKINS and a WATERMELON are going to go this summer...

PUMPKINS and WATERMELON: maybe one PUMPKIN in the BANANA CIRCLE, and the other PUMPKIN in front of the LOUNGE ROOM? Except the GRAPE and the PASSIONFRUIT are already in front of the LOUNGE ROOM.
Turn the IBC into a WICKING BED (I wish I could have done this sooner, alas), then plant maybe the GRAPE and the PASSIONFRUIT in it, or one of the PUMPKINS, or the WATERMELON.
What if I ran the WATERMELON out of one of the VEGEPODS, along with the TOMATOES and GARLIC? It would need heavy feeding, like heavy heavy feeding. Otherwise, wherever the WATERMELON goes, it's going to want an olla, at least, maybe something a bit more? Dig a compost circle around it?

Dear Diary: 28th September

WEATHER:

The high temps are rising, but the low temps aren't moving - currently around 13C minimum, but getting double that during the day. 30C predicted for tomorrow, a cooler day on Sunday, then HEATWAVE for early next week. ARGH.

RAIN

Rain last night - about 5mm, I think. Cool and occasional showers today. The tank is filling, there's more due later next week, but we have to get through the heatwave first.

CHOOKS:

Laying regularly: Siyao, Goong, and Carambah. Chouqette is still fluffing around, being noisy, but not apparently laying.

OSBERVATIONS

Dandelions everywhere in the front yard. Couch grass everywhere in the back. Keeping the grass in check is a trick and one that I've not gotten the hang of. The comfrey is growing back in places I don't really want it, and there's onion weed everywhere. I think the removal of that is going to be manual and slow, season by season. It's just a PITA to have to do so often and so much!

PREPARATION:

Trying to manage the dandelions, manually pulling them out (wonderful tool) and weed-tea-ing them for compost. However the north lawn (driveway side lawn) is a bit of a loss - it's almost entirely dandelions at this stage. I've actually acquired some weed 'n feed and am trying that on the lawn, but wow it smells of iron! I did find an article about organic weed control which recommends a product called corn gluten meal.

The truth is, I don't want the lawn so much as I want to be able to develop a nice meadowy space on that north side. Grass need not apply! Unfortunately what I have is creeping buffalo grass (and couch in the backyard; ugh). It's going to need more work and maintenance in the coming season to try to get it to a point of survival - especially as the summer gets hot. That said, a meadow might survive where a garden would not.

Backyard, the couch grass is starting to perk up; I'm pulling some of it up and have weed tea'd it in a bucket off to the side. The promised teenaged assistance has not materialised, so that's a PITA, and I'm mostly pulling it up by hand (and doing my back in the process).

Got the PLUM-STONE, APPLE-CREPE, and AVO-SHED beds in. Need to get the CREPE-APRICOT bed frames cut up and put together and set in place. It wasn't difficult to do - easier with 2 people, I suspect - but it wasn't difficult.

TO DO

• cut panels for last garden bed, or else buy more barrier edging from Hammerbarn.
• draw up measurements for BENCH SEATING
• white oil/pest spray KUMQUAT, MAKRUT LIME, PERSIMMON (after heatwave, when temps have dropped again)
• repot TINY BLUEBERRY
• pot TEA CAMELLIAS
• net front NECTARINE and GOLDEN PEACH
• shade back beds

PLANTING

I repotted both the KUMQUAT and the APRICOT

ICE-CREAM BEAN seeds planted

PLUM-STONE: SPINACH (perpetual), BEANS (blue ribbon - double check this) with a climbing pole in the middle, SILVERBEET?, RADISH (black spanish), BEETROOT (found in packet, unknown type), ONION (found in plastic packet, unknown type)

PLUM-STONE: TOMATOES (both indeterminate and determinate types: indeterminates up the back with suitable structures for hanging plants off (hopefully), EGGPLANTS (labelled, but also have a pic saved and set up), BEANS (pole, possibly snake) at the back.

1 Jaune Flamme, 2 Marmande (red), 2 Brad's Atomic Grape (yellow), 2 Waspinicon Peach (orange), 3 amethyst cream (magenta), 3 blue berries (blue), 2 pink bumblebee (green)

VEGEPOD: Planted Cecelia's GINGER - I don't think the other rhizomes are GINGER, they don't smell right.

RIPENING

Last of the CITRUSES. That's really about it, I think. Other than the fruit which are slowly growing.

HARVEST

Brassica leaves from APPLE-CREPE: should be suitable for a coleslaw-type thing. Last orange, maybe a couple of tangerines? Oh PARSNIPS from bathtub. There's also CORIANDER and ALPINE STRAWBERRIES coming good, and some RED CELERY is making itself known in various spots of the garden.

PRUNING

Pruned the AVOCADO tree - it's too broad and too wide, and I'm kind of worried about the weight of the avos going forward. Not very neat, though.

THOUGHTS

Thinking I'd like to plant some groundcover in front of the chook yard, but the problem is giving it enough time to get some roots in, particularly this summer.

Diary - 15th July, 2023

WEATHER:

Sunny and dry. Warmer, no bite in the morning - my car said 25C at midday.

RAIN

None for weeks.

CHOOKS:

All seem pretty happy and healthy. Goong has a red comb, Siyao's is pretty red, too. Caramabah is still demanding food all the time, and Chouquette isn't showing signs of going into lay. Chouquette comes close and allows me to pet her, but it's more a "where's the food, no food? no pets" kind of attitude.

OBSERVATIONS

Some major cracks in the front yard. Going to contact a plumber about having a look into them with one of those long and flexible cameras. If I can find one to come do the work.

One of the brick pylons under the house is rather less-than-straight. The middle one on the eastern side of B1's bedroom is not perfectly plumb, like it's gently being pushed over. I don't know if it was always like that or has only been in the last couple of years. The problem is that I didn't notice these things before and I'm noticing them now. It's one of the reasons why observation is so important, I guess.

Native bees are back and active on the warmer days. Very still and quiet on the colder ones, and I try to remember to cover them up a little on the cold nights, then open them up so they won't grow mould. But they're active and involved and seem to be doing well.

The TWO-STONE and DUAL-STONE are in flower. The TROPIC DORSET on the Golden Delicious APPLE is setting buds ready to bloom.

The TOMATOES in the bed under the TWO-STONE tree are generally dying - we had some frost, and although I had the old window screens up to give them a bit of a buffer, the one on the south blew off and I think that the tomatoes that would have been otherwise protected by them are now dying.

PREPARATION:

Green mulch. Need to plant out some green mulch in the summer beds. And I just realised that I prepped some COWPEA mulch for the back beds...and forgot that the stuff is for summer mulch. I guess I can plant it and see what survives, but I don't really like the chances. I should have prepped the Woolly Pod Vetch but that stuff can get weedy really easily and I didn't want to risk it. *sigh* Well, we'll plant the COWPEA and see how it does.

PUMPKIN-POTATO bed should probably be green-mulched.

PLANTING

Today, I planted out four ASPARAGUS ferns into the LOWER STEP BED. I've been trying to grow things in that bed for years and the only thing that really grows there are weeds. But the asparagus grows fine in the upper beds with some fertilising and watering, so I'm doing it. Also put the THYME in there from Wormticklers, and tossed down a lot of MUSTARD. To finish it off, I need to put down the remaining pea-straw from the pack.

I was thinking about fertilising the UPPER STEP BED with matured chook manures collected from the coop back when there were blood mites - I think it was 2021? Going to have to look back at the diary for that. But because I associate this manure with the mites, I'm nervous about putting it on the garden, even though it's a long way from the chooks. Just gotta bite the bullet I guess and do it. Get past the fear, etc.

I also planted PARSNIPS under the apples, both the FOUR-APPLE and the GOLDEN DELICIOUS. Less for the roots themselves, more for the greens and the flowers and the promise of pollinators and pest-control. (If they flower.) Probably should have also done daikon and beetroot, just to break up the soil some.

RIPENING

Still the oranges and I think they're tangerines? The ALPINE STRAWBS have been doing their thing pretty well.

HARVEST

BROCCOLI leaves. I need to remember to cook the BROCCOLI leaves! Occasional TOMATOES from the westernmost bed in the TRIANGLE GARDEN.

PRUNING

Did the RASPBERRY PATCH a couple of weeks ago, trimming most of it down and clipping up most of the canes. I didn't really check for spring/autumn canes, and now I need to toss down a bunch of manure and maybe some hay/mulch to give it some feeding before the spring.

Backyard AVOCADO needs pruning down, snip off the tops of the tree. Needs it soon because it's starting to sprout again and I think the next round of flowers are likely to be coming...

The bush of THAI BASIL and the SALVIAS out the front need serious haircuts and soon. Now's a good time to do it, the flowers on the stone fruit trees and the Golden Dorset branch will keep the bees occupied.

THOUGHTS and PLANS

With the weather looking very fine, I could probably make the wooden seats in the next couple of weekends.

I want to set up potable water collection off the roof - I should probably look into that sustainable house in the inner west, find out what they did and how they did it and whether it's replicable here.

There's a part of me that wants to die very fast and very soon. I'm good for it, no real regrets, no need to live forever. But also, there's a part that would like to see what I've developed here go to someone who wants to use it, not just someone who'd bulldoze the lot and build a McMansion.

dear diary: 8th October

Last garden post for a while. I'm going for a round-the-world trip on Sunday, won't be back until November! There's someone to look after the cats and the chooks on a day-to-day basis, but hopefully the rain will keep everything humming while I'm away...

OBSERVATIONS

During the week's crazy rain, the gutters started leaking again - downspouts were blocked with jacaranda leaves. During October (Sept school hols) need to climb up on the roof and clear the gutters, preferably when the weather is clear and not in the middle of crazy rain while home alone!

Grass is super damp in the ridge running parallel to the triangle orchard on the south side. Superdamp and squishy.

Definitely some 'soft spots' under the backyard woodchip. Going to need a refill when I get back.

CHOOKS

B1 took Coldie to the vet because she was concerned that Coldie was gaining weight and her comb was starting to grow and go floppy again. Apparently she's fine, but the implant that keeps Coldie from laying might have expired. It's only been 3 months, and they usually last 6-12 months so...she got another implant. Dear heavens but that chook is expensive.

The chooks now have a roof over the west end of their yard thanks to Mike of Let's Grow Shopping, so they can still go outside in the rain a little, rather than being stuck in the triangle coop.

PRUNING & PREPARING

Covered several beds with sugarcane mulch.

Got the trellis up for the BACKYARD APRICOT espalier, but the arms aren't tied down (yet).

Dug up the driveway vegepod weeds and then covered with damp paper and cardboard, and sugarcane mulch. See if it manages to cut down the weeds by the time I come back. (Wish I'd put down a layer of comfrey.)

PUMPKIN-POTATO bed:

PLANTING

QLD Sunrise, Rosewood, and Argentina Phoenix PUMPKINS in a black recycling box full of compost down by the picketfence bed. Literally tossed in clumps of seed, covered with sugarcane mulch we'll see what's up by the time I get back.

FLOWERING & RIPENING

The Berry Wall behind the washing line is flowering. Avocado is in full flower but not many avos are being pollinated (damn) - may need to consider a second avo tree for better cross-pollination.

HARVEST

Asparagus, various leafies. Broccoli leaves? Fennel! CRAAAAAP. So many things to eat and not enough time to eat them! Or even prep them. (Frankly, I'd love some of Margaret's delicately flavoured sauerkraut.)

NOTES

We're going with the uPVC double-glazed windows, sometime over the course of the summer. Going to have to start moving things away from the windows so the installation can take place. That's going to be fun getting organised/tidied for that.

summer planting planning

To plant on Friday-Saturday: ONIONS

I want ONIONS come next winter. But planting them now means planting them somewhere that I can be reasonably sure they'll last through the summer. Which means a wicking bed. Which means either the front lounge bed, or the large vegepod or the small vegepod.

Next leafy/fruity planting cycle: SILVERBEET and SPINCH (again) Probably in either the vegepod or the front lounge wicking bed.

I have several ROCKMELONS and some WATERMELONS that need planting out. I was thinking that I could perhaps dig out the soil in the metal frame bed of the triangle orchard, put down fresh chook poop and more new compost, then put the soil back over. The bluebird ollas I have in there should provide just enough moisture through the middle-of-the-summer heat, and I can mulch that bed pretty heavily. Then, at the end of summer, put some leafy greens in, before pulling the entire bed out come spring (perhaps).

IDK. I feel like my garden is miserable compared to the gardens I see on instagram and FB: I know - it's the way of things. They show only the best parts of their gardens, the successes, carefully curated. I have to remind myself that.

Yesterday, I did have a chat with a couple... my brain is saying 'Alison and Scott' and I hope that's correct because I didn't write it down in my neighbourhood book, dammit. Which has become increasingly necessary in order to keep track of who is who (I'm awful with names, but pretty good with faces). But, yes, a couple who've just moved into the next road up and were admiring my nectarine trees. They've got a few trees in their yard and they're just learning what they are now that spring is in. I hope they'll be back; I do need to chat with a few more people in the neighbourhood about gardens and growing things and neighbourhood movements... Gotta work out how to make contact.

slow sorting out spring

Trying to work out what to plant right now.

I've already done most of my planting, but there's some seeds that failed and others that could do with succession sowing. But this always brings up the question of how many and what.

Tomatoes? More tomatoes? How many more tomatoes? Corn? Glass Gem for the pretty (and popcorn and grinding), or sweet corn for the eating? Pumpkins? I really do need to work out my pumpkins: I want some for eating and some for storing, and zucchinis if I can actually grow them. It's touch and go some years. I'd love capsicums and cucumbers because we would eat them, and eggplant because I love cooking with eggplant. Melons? That would be the ideal, but I never do well with melons. It might just be that I've never grown them in rich enough soil and well-watered conditions. IDK.

Those are the annuals, the ones that get sown and planted out every year. I should probably plant more lettuce for when the current crop of lettuces & silverbeets & spinaches die off - I could stick them in the somewhat shady HEXABED, maybe? Except one of the reasons I was growing flowers and whatnot in the HEXABED is because of the high lead levels...

I also have to think of what to say about Use And Value Diversity, which is October's Permie Principle. Apart from sowing heirloom seeds, or having early-, mid-, and late- varieties where possible, or buying heritage breeds to mix with layer breeds so they'll hopefully last longer than a few years' cycle of chooks. IDK.

I stuck the chooks back on the CREPE-APRICOT bed after protecting the bush beans that were growing there, because I needed them to dig up and deal with the remainder of the brassicas. But after this, they're going to be stuck with the front yards, and that's about it. I'm still trying to grow some perennials along the edges of CHOOKYARD 2, because everything else gets scratched up something awful.

In the NORTH PICKET FENCE, a couple of 'Very Large' pumpkins have started growing from the seeds I dumped there. The sunflowers I planted out seem to be doing well, and the Elder tree is in bloom. Not sure if any of the Avos have pollinated, nor the mangoes. But the Asian basils and the salvias are coming back with a vengeance, and the lavenders are starting to reshoot after I hacked them apart in midwinter.

And the roses and the wildflower lawn are going off!

planting and preparing

The last week of gardening in pictures:

Sowing seedlings (in aquarium greenhouse and vegepod):

Peaches on the tree, growing and ripening, and giant-leafed rhubarb (although the stalks are very short)

Avocado flowers up high, and taro plant down low:

And Goongbao chicken is broody - she's the one with the black edges to her feathers. Shantung chicken is just doing her laying business.

apple-crepe, crepe-apricot, seed planting

Dumping thoughts:

APPLE-CREPE

Currently BROADBEANS and BEANS (bush, blue ribbon) along the back, mustard everywhere else

check pH of bed!

make a Pasta/Pizza plot from One Magic Square:
TOMATOES (marchand?) & BASIL (Fothergills)
RED ONIONS (lime bed, plant direct)
ROCKET (far side of bed)
EGGPLANT
CHILLI & CHIVES (white packet)
CAPSICUMS - one overwintered growing under the APPLE already, feed v lightly w/ manure tea & seaweed solution

CREPE-APRICOT

Currently ASIAN GREENS (BOK CHOI, CHINESE CABBAGE) - lowest leaves are sketchy, possibly slugs?

Crop Rotation Planning suggests CARROTS, BEETS, RADISHES, then adding fertility with manures. If I skipped the root round, I could maybe manure it up and do CORN? Hm. I don't have peas in any of the beds yet. Might go with SNOWPEAS.

Okay, we'll do SNOWPEAS. I'm pretty sure I have them. Will need to make trellises for them to climb up. Although I guess I already have the frame on the western side of the bed...

check pH of bed!

PLUM-STONE

Currently SPINACH, LETTUCES, SILVERBEET and some BROADBEANS.

Again, Crop Rotation Planning suggests CARROTS, BEETS, RADISHES. I have these mostly growing elsewhere. But the leafy greens will last quite a while here. Could put some more SILVERBEET down, though for through the summer and into autumn? Maybe lime it and plant ONIONS here mid-summer?

tidying up the garden: weekend report

Spring is in, which means everything is growing (or going to) and the crops need to be gotten into the soil.

I planted glass gem corn a couple of weeks back, during the fruits/leaf planting period. I planted them out on Saturday in a bighuge block (an entire garden bed). I also shook out a bunch of basil seeds, and planted some beetroot in the 'shallow' part of the bed (where I need access to step over to the brick).

Hopefully they'll be growing pretty decently by Christmas, at which point I can replace it with late summer tomatoes. Or more leafy greens for winter.

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On Friday evening, I got a call from Gardening Australia - one of the people who runs the 'storyboarding' process, looking at the kinds of stories they can run. She'd been given my name and number by someone who'd been featured on the show (and is something of a friend of the show) and wanted me to send pics/video of my garden and particularly the setup with the chooks. They were looking at a 'suburban chicken owner' segment, and wanted to see what kinds of options there were. So I ran the video around the (admittedly less than impressive) garden. It is spring, and the garden doesn't do much over winter (except house the chooks) so things are still in the slow-growing stage.

In the end, she opted to go with another idea for a segment - the secretary of our permaculture group, who's been doing amazing things with his house and yard in the last five years.

But it lit a fire in me to get the backyard looking a bit more decent than it does. More perennials, more chop-and-drop plantings (comfrey; more comfrey!), and garden beds that are made to last longer than a season so they don't look quite so miserable!

That's another project: make more garden bed/chook tractor frames. Use screws to put the panels in, rather than nails (screws will hold better), and paint/limewash the frames so they last longer than a single season! Also, the panels towards the 'back' of the bed frames down the side (apple-crepe, crepe-apricot, apricot-avo, avo-shed) need to be longer, to prop it up higher, because the ground slopes significantly down to the fence.

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On Sunday, my sisters helped me get the tarp to a higher elevation - a less saggy position - and as a result it looks way nicer!

Still need to paint the chook house properly, and add a roof of plastic/corrugated iron that actually does the job of keeping the rain out, rather than the weird green roof thing that is pretty much just slowly growing mould. I don't think I have anything to hand that will do the job, but there's a council clean-up coming and I can probably scavenge a couple of sheets of something. Polycarbonate would be best (nice and light) but we can do corrugated iron.

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I'm going to need to put netting over the trees: this is the last you'll see of the backyard without netting for some months. Unfortunately, the fruit flies are here and they're here to stay, and if I want any kind of a crop, netting is the only way to go.

I'll take a photo at lunch today.

Overall, I feel like I've gotten a handle on the backyard and how to grow things. It certainly helps to have five chooks adding fertility: it seems that almost all the trees are blooming really well this year - so that's hopeful.

weekend gardening

Weekend was warm and sunny before a cold front bringing rain was to hit us mid-week. So it was a good time to get stuff done in the garden.

Did/Done List
1. Removed a wire fence from behind my two driveway bed apples. It was useful back when I was using it to confine the chooks, but now that we have so many more chooks, weeding is going to be a lot faster: done in a couple of days rather than over the course of a cople of weeks. The fence wasn't helping guide the apples anymore, and it was detrimental to netting the trees, so I replaced it with two wooden posts to string some wire between for netting to cover the apple trees.

2. Planted out my mother's black lilies in between the apricot and the elder tree
3. Planted ranunculus bulbs in front of the multi-stone in the backyard.
4. Grafted two apples - don't know if they'll take: I can't get the whip-and-tongue grafts to fit properly enough that the cambium layers match. I might have to stick a butterfly clip on it to properly pin the surfaces together.
5. Planted out a 'green fodder' bed in the second chook yard.
6. Planted blue turmeric and galangal, and I did the ginger just this morning.
7. Set up the north side garden beds - including the turmeric, galangal, ginger beds - ready to be watered from the kitchen vegiewash run-off. I'll need more soil with which to fill out the polyboxes that I'll be doing the growing in (insulated), and I need to better work out the watering system so it more evenly distributes, but...it's a start!
8. Attached chook wire to the new midpoint post of the chicken yard. Now I just need the hardware for affixing the beams and bracing them against each other so they stay square and don't sag.
9. Moved the composting frame from the compost in the chook yard to the banana circle (where it's blown over in the present winds). The plan is to get mostly garden clippings and stuff from the neighbours and toss it in there to decompose and rot. I may need to put a wire base on it to keep the rats out.
10. Closed up the fruit fly netting around the peach/nectarine and set some traps for them within the netting to catch the ones that had already turned up.

Planned to do but did not
I was also planning to repot the black sapote, but that didn't happen and now I'm out of soil. I'm going to have to dig out the chook yard shortly, get all that good chook poop and soil for it to grow in. I doubt I'll get any fruit from it - I think it's too cold through the year for it.

We had rain all of Tuesday, along with gusty winds, our water barrels filled up and our soil soaked it up. Hopefully this means there'll be a lot more growing in the coming month, and then some more rain in late September/early October to give bulk to the fruit that's setting even now.

Gonna have to get my nettings on over all the fruit trees. And that's going to be a job and a half, oy.

Spring makes its inevitable march; unfortunately, the warm temperatures we're having now promise a burningly hot summer. It won't be pretty at all.

wiritjiribin: the cold and windy

Wiritjiribin is the name for this season in the language of the Dharawal people who lived from the south of Sydney harbour down to the Shoalhaven and the start of the Wollondilly river network. The season is characterised by cold weather and high winds, and we're certainly getting both!

I've just gotten a new phone, and because the cameras differ between phones, I'm taking a quick photo of the backyard with it:

It's been a pretty dry winter. Some rains, yes, but by and large not enough to really penetrate the soil. I've got a number of leafy green plants in and am mostly hand-watering them with homemade seaweed solution and worm juice. But the truth is, I'm not very good at eating my leafy greens from the garden, which is a pity because they're growing pretty well this year!

Gardening is a process of learning from your mistakes, and I'm learning that I can grow green leafies, I just need to sow them pretty thickly and give them time to go hell for leather. And then I get a pretty decent crop!

Root vegies, on the other hand, are still touch-and-go. Carrots did marginally as usually (I really should give up on carrots, they never turn out). Parsnips were okay - nice big tops, at least to start with. Turnips didn't do well at all - only the size of my thumb and about as long before they developed really fine roots. Beetroot...not really. But the onions... I think I have the onions worked out now. Sow pretty thickly, leave to do their thing, then thin the small ones ASAP and let the others grow to a medium size. I planted the onions late last year, and so they only really got to golf-ball size. This year, the plan is to get some to tennis ball size!

The brassicas continue to be attacked by aphids and I don't seem to have sufficient ladybugs or lacewings to deal with them right now. I really have to plant some land cress to attract the white cabbage moth (although I did catch one the other day, killed it, and am now displaying its body on a fine copper wire in order to deter other cabbage moths). But I bought the land cress and then simply haven't planted it!

This winter, the tomatoes have done better than tomatoes usually do in my garden through the summer. I'm not entirely sure if it's the soil, the cool, or that it got a pretty decent raining on when it was about 5 weeks - 2 months old. Might have to try that with my summer tomatoes. Also: mulching. Mulching mulching mulching.

Beans and pumpkins: not together, but I have some fairly specific (and limited) heirloom types that I plan to grow this year. The squashes I've decided to grow are one maxima - golden nugget, one moschata - gramma, one pepo - zucchini. I don't think they can cross-pollinate, so we should be safe! This year I have two climbing beans and two bush beans, and I'm going to keep them in very specific places: climbing beans in the front, growing up a trellis, bush beans in the back in the annual beds.

I bought some hops rhizomes, and they're going to grow up the front of the house, and hopefully provide a little shade against the harsh western sun. That's the plan, let's see if it manages to come to fruition! I have the containers prepared, but they're definitely going to need some good watering, and I think it's going to have to be with 'waste' water from the kitchen, because I'm bad at regular watering like that.

Corn: I plan to grow at least two types - the extremely pretty glass gem corn, and another heirloom type that I bought last year and didn't grow. I would really like to grow the f1 sweet corn again - that stuff was goooooood - but I think the heirloom types store better over winter, and have better flavour that way.

Structure plans: setting up the watering sink on the front porch (pour a bucket of water into it and it will water the various plants in the front), improving the watering system down the driveway side of the house (from the kitchen sink), a growing frame for the squashes, a suitable frame for the beans, strings for the hops to grow up. That's for this year. So many plans, and the uncertainty of whether or not any of it will come to fruition or if I'll just end up exhausted and out of it. A little each day is doable. Just a little.

Mulching, fertility, nutrients: with between four to six chickens feeding the soil over the last year, a visible frame for the garden beds, and a significant improvement in my composting systems, I'm hoping that the backyard beds will do far beyond my expectations. Soil fertility for annual vegetables is a big issue in the rough clay of this property, and while last year was better, it's not the degree of growth that I've been hoping for. The fruit trees have always done well, but the vegies have been touch-and-go. I have three bales of lucerne for mulch, the laying box hay, and I've been tossing the 'night chaff' into the tractor in between adding it to my composts. Five full-grown chooks excreting half their daily poop should do a decent job of fertilising the ground. Now to see what comes of it!

Have a picture of Hainan chicken perched in the chicken tractor over a garden bed:

planting/growing notes

Live Love Fruit: Use This Companion Planting Chart to Help Your Garden Thrive

Self Sufficient Me: Underplanting

How To Grow a TON of Tomatoes

Interestingly, something that is almost never said in any of these videos is just how much water a vegetable garden takes to be really productive.

Spring Update 2019

It is the middle of spring, and everything is growing.

The asparagus are growing nearly as fast as I can eat them:

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The wicking bed out the side (North-facing) has started kicking in over the last month, with eggplants, onions, tomatoes, and peas. I've succession-planted some beans among the peas, and also a luffa plant - hopefully some of the other vine melon plants sprout and I'll put them in there to act as a shade screen over the heat of the summer.

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The Plum-Stone bed has been sitting pretty quiet through the winter - I planted a bunch of broad beans (which mostly have aphids), peas (didn't take very well), sprouting broccoli (mostly went to seed the instant it started warming up), and mustard (the only thing doing well and pest-less in the photo).

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The Apple-Crepe bed is a problem. I filled it with a soil that I got as part of a project, but it was extremly alkaline (ph of around 9, when what you want is about 6.5-7 for most vegies) and likely not all that great for growing things in.

That's radish in the shade, garlic in the middle of the bed, and carrots in the sun. What you can't see are the onions and leeks, or beetroots, and the parsnips never even materialised. (Parsnips are incredibly difficult to grow apparently: the seed needs to be fresh, and all the conditions need to be right.) This bed was planted back in May, maybe June. And it hasn't grown at all. That's how bad the soil is.

Also, I underfilled the bed with woodchips, thinking they would break down. I kind of doubt that they did, it's probably a mess under there. Anyway, I need to transplant the garlic (I might try to turn it into perennial garlic in the herb bed - just keep trimming the green tops and they grow more green tops - gives the taste of garlic even if it's not the bulb) and pull out all the failed vegies. Kind of heartbreaking though.

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This is the Crepe-Apricot bed which is going to hold sweet corn this season. It's mostly an 'in progress' pic to show what it looks like now. Hopefully in five months, it will look entirely entirely different!

Mind you, I planted about a dozen seeds here, straight into the ground, and exactly two of them have grown. I'm better off planting corn in seedling trays and then transplanting, I think. A much better strike rate.

That big green-and-purple thing on the right side of the photo is a...brassica that I planted in winter. I don't know what kind (I'm bad at labelling) but I thought it was a brussels sprout. I suspect it might be a purple sprouting broccoli but it's hard to tell. It's doing better than the other two which I planted under the Stone fruit tree which are...pretty much the same size that they were when I planted them. Maybe marginally bigger. :/

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The Apricot-Avocado bed had a compost heap on it for about six weeks over winter, before I transferred it to another compost heap and raked it out into the Apricot bed (which I'm trying to grow green manure/meadow flowers on).

Now it has...brassicas. Yes, 'brassicas'. World's Most Terrible Labeller, remember?

I guess we'll see if they head or not. Also: it being summer, it's probably going to get too hot for them really fast, so I'm trying to grow things in front of them to take up more sunlight for them as well as to grow things pretty closely so it's a melange of green and growing things that shade the ground and make the evaporation of any watering a little slower. The 'somethings' that I plant will probably be indeterminate tomatoes, because who doesn't love a billion tomatoes come autumn?

There are a couple of beans up the back of the bed; and I've tossed down a bunch of 'green manures' which are quick growing nitrogen fixers that will not only improve the nitrogen in the bed, but also provide some mulching bulk as the summer wears on.

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And the bed at the end of the line - the Avo-Shed bed - has more brassicas which are probably a mix of cabbages and sprouting broccoli, a tomatillo (or two, I hope, once the thing gets moving) in the front, and a row of beans along the back. Unfortunately, I managed to double-plant beans, because I planted a bunch and then forgot I'd planted them, and then planted another set, and both sets sprouted. *rolls eyes*

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Speaking of the chooks, they're spending most of their days out in the front run, are laying, and quite happy to get in yo' face.

Interestingly, there's a section of the chook run which abuts the neighbour's yard beyond the fenceline, and I've noticed the neighbours have started throwing some of their kitchen wastes into the chook pen. Which, they're from out rural way, used to be farm folk, so I understand, so I trust they're not trying to poison my chooks. I've had a bit of a chat to them about the chickens when they first moved in (because I was worried about the noise they might make) but they've been pretty good about the occasional noisy clucking that takes place when one of the chooks wants something and isn;t getting it. (Hainan chicken is particularly noisy when she's bored.)

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There's still the front yard to go. Maybe talk abotu that some other time...